But that review is by "Paul Gaita, Amazon.com", so is actually a review of the US version.

I have both the U.S. and the UK version. By comparison:

- The UK set is on four one-sided discs and hopefully, it will work as it should. The U.S. version, on the other hand, is on two dual-sided discs which are prone to problems. (Mine freezes in the middle of two episodes, and other people on this board have reported of similar problems. This is why I decided to get the UK set, though I already had the U.S. version.)

- No Mrs. Columbo included in the UK version. (Well, I haven't bothered to watch it anyway, though I have it on the U.S. version).

- I agree that the picture of Peter Falk on the cover of the UK version (from the 1970s) is much more appropriate for the 3rd season than the one on the cover of U.S. version (which, I suppose, is from the late 1980s or early 1990s).

- Another minor difference: in the U.S. release, the original Universal logos that appear after the end credits of each episode have been removed, while on the UK version they are still there. I prefer originality, but this is meaningless really (others won't probably care or even notice).

- Picture quality is about the same (with the typical pros and cons of NTSC and PAL, but if you have good multi-region equipment, the differences are minor).

Sorry to hear you got a defective set. My UK set has discs 1-4 as it should. Amazon will no doubt correct the problem, but things like that are always a hassle.